LIFE IS A CABARET OLD CHUM SO
COME TO THE CABARET

Adelaide Cabaret FestivalJune 9 – 25. Adelaide Festival Centre

by Peter Wilkins

Now in its seventeenth year, the
Adelaide Cabaret Festival remains a glittering jewel in Adelaide’s rich
Festival crown. In recognition of its artistic longevity and its unique
contribution to cabaret in the country, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival under
first time co-artistic directors Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect was recognized
as the best major event and festival in the 2016 South Australian Tourism
Awards. Adelaide has long enjoyed its enviable reputation as the Festival
State, but for my money, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival holds a special place in
the hearts of all cabaret lovers who make the pilgrimage each year to taste the
festival’s delights.

This year the delights offer a
banquet of performances and events to tantalize the taste buds of every
aficionado and entice new theatre-goers to sample the delectable morsels on
offering and revel in the very special, intimate and dynamic experience that is
the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

This year, buoyed by their
phenomenal success in 2016, Artistic Directors McGregor and Perfect, with the
Adelaide Festival Centre have lured 430 artists to excite audiences with 147
performances. Fifty –eight international artists will travel from as far afield
as the United States, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Japan and New Zealand. Of
the 372 Australian artists taking part, 234 come from South Australia, proof
that the festival’s long history has been a fertile breeding ground for
aspiringcabaret performers. A highlight
of several years has been the Class of Cabaret at which young performers
demonstrate the phenomenal talent that exists in the state. This year alone,
the festival will showcase seventeen world premieres, five Australian
premieres, 25 Adelaide premieres as well as 17 Adelaide exclusives, twenty
shows with international artists including the amazing Alan Cumming with his
show, Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs.
As Australia’s leading producer of cabaret, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival will
also commission or co-commission five entirely original shows.

﻿

Alan Cumming with his cabaret show
Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs

Small wonder then that McGregor
should be bursting with enthusiasm as she describes the surprises and delights
in store for those who make the journey to Adelaide from June 9 – 25.

“It’s been really quite wonderful
for me” McGregor says. “I’ve been part of the festival as a performer in David’s
(Campbell), Kate’s (Ceberano) and Barrys (Humphries) festivals. We are all
travelling down that same Yellow Brick Road. I don’t feel as though we’re
wiping the slate and starting again. I feel as though we are building on what’s
gone before. There’s always another colour being thrown into the palette.

Now into their second cabaret
festival, McGregor and Perfect are turning the tables with a fresh new look at
cabaret and its role in a contemporary world. The marketing team’s promotional
video becomes a pertinent metaphor for this year’s festival. A group of
formally attired cabaret performers are seated at a table. Suddenly one hurls a
meatball across the table at another. Before long, meatballs are flying in all
directions, splattering on faces and clothes. One of the artists tears open her
shirt to reveal the glitter beneath as the table erupts into slapstick chaos.
“The throwing of the meatballs starts with provocation.” McGregor explains.
“Underneath is the cabaret sense of play and revolution. That’s what we feel is
happening in the world as well. There’s a lot more in the Zeitgeist of gender
issues, inequality, feminism and racism and the dialogue about such events as
the Trump presidency, the rise of populism, Brexit and political and social
events in our own country.”

However, McGregor and Perfect
didn’t want to address the big issues too seriously. There is always a
political undercurrent in Cabaret with lots of satire. McGregor also feels
that it is important that performers never take themselves too seriously “

This year the tables have also
been turned on the creative producers, the artists and the festival team.
Extensive renovations to the Adelaide Festival Centre on the banks of the River
Torrens have meant that some traditional spaces such as the Piano Bar and the
Wintergarden will not be accessible. This has resulted in many of the performances
being moved to the river side of the Centre and more performances being
transferred to Her Majesty’s Theatre in Adelaide’s CBD. Festivalgoers will need
to allow more time to reach venues, especially if they are planning to go from
one performance to another at a different location. Ever the optimist,
McGregor sees advantage in such apparent disruption and equates it with
innovation.

“We are interested in a lot of
innovation in the form.” McGregor and Perfect have worked closely as a team to
select performers who are doing many very interesting things with the broad
ranging genre of cabaret. McGregor is especially inspired by Delacroix’s image
of Liberty, leading the battle. It is in fact her leitmotif, the stirring image
of a distinctly feminine image with a sense of power. “Having a power is
something I see a lot in the arts.” she says.

It is also a force that has led
her into the curation of events, and the power to make a difference through her
art. McGregor is no novice to the curation of a festival. Before working with
Perfect on last year’s festival, she curated for the Melbourne Comedy Festival
and in 2015 curated her own show Decadence in celebration of a decade of her involvement
in cabaret.

“I don’t just chuck a whole lot
of people together. I like a balance. I make sure that there is a balance of
light and dark and different stories being told. We want to have something for
everyone with songbook singers, comedy, some drama and theatre, some physical
comedy with every weekend to be balanced. “

Ancient Rain with Paul Kelly, Camille
O'Sullivan and Feargal Murray

A glance at the programme over
the three weekends is evidence of the vast range of styles and cabaret performances
to challenge a diehard’s view of what is cabaret. International artists like Alan
Cumming and Bridget Everet are there with Australian favourites such as
Meow-Meow, Paul Kelly and Camille O’Sullivan, and for something different the
local Adelaide String Quartet. There is an innovative project, Hush 16: A Piece of Quiet, featuring
musical compositions, created after conversations with children in hospital and
in complete contrast, there is the Burlesque boys from Queensland with their
risqué and cheeky show, Briefs.

" I was really desperate to bring
new stories.” McGregor tells me. “ I wanted to have lots of different colours-
singers who came from an operatic background like Peter and Bambi, Kage and
renegade ballsy and brassy Bridget Everet. Every time I’ve performed at the
Cabaret Festival I’ve come away filled with inspiration.”

Bridget Everet

Perfect and McGregor will also
be performing at the festival. “There’s no way I could just stand and watch all
that. We can’t help ourselves.” she laughs.

“And what about the audiences?” I
ask. “I love them so much.” McGregor replies. They’ll come along because of Alan
Cumming, but they’ll take a punt on someone they’ve never heard of before. They
know we’re going to programme stuff of quality. It may not be to your taste but
it will be of a quality that you’ll get something out of even if it’s not your
fang.”

For audiences who may only be
able to make a part of the entire festival, such as interstate visitors, I
raise the obvious dilemma. There’s so much on and one can’t hope to see
everything. McGregor has some very sound advice. “We tried very hard to make
sure that every weekend is balanced.” She says. “Find a weekend you’re
available. I would look at one act you desperately want to see and maybe one
you’ve seen before that you’re dying to see again, and then go from there. We
have our opening gala and our closing gala. Find the central show that you
would like to see and then just go from there.”

Family Gala. Photo by Claudio Raschella

﻿﻿McGregor is a cabaret captive
and knows better than most what will appeal and guarantees quality. Opera
trained at the ANU School of Music and in the UK and Italy, McGregor escaped
the regimented world of opera to literally run away to the circus and join the
highly successful circus/cabaret act, La Clique. She was captured by the
immediacy of cabaret and the freedom that Cabaret offered. “”It’s so immediate
and there’s such a direct dialogue between audience and performer which I
love.”It’s an immediacy and a dialogue
between audience and artists that will burst into life when McGregor and
Perfect’s second Cabaret Festival opens on June 9th with a fabulous
Opening Gala.

It seems only appropriate that Perfect, who was overseas at the
time of this interview, should have the final word. “In 2017 we invite our brave and
open-minded audience to join us to turn the tables from fear to love, division
to unity, anger to joy and all with wit, skill, wonder and passion.” Add to
that a feast of the senses and you have a festival that is impossible to
resist.For further information on the Adelaide Cabaret Festival Programme and bookings go to www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com or phone BASS on 131246. International Bookings on 618 82052300

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About Me

The 26 year-old Canberra Critics’ Circle is the only such group of critics in Australia that runs across all the major art forms, not just performing arts.
The circle changes each year depending on who is writing or broadcasting on the arts in Canberra.
Our aim is to provide a focal point for Canberra reviewers in print and electronic media through discussions and forums. As well, we make awards to ACT region artists (defined as within 100km radius of Canberra) in the latter part of each year.
The CCC has always resisted making awards in “best-of” categories. Arts practice is not a competitive race and Canberra is a small pool where it would be ridiculous to pre-impose categories, apart from major art form genres. The idea is that we, the critics, single out qualities we have noticed -- things which have struck us as important. These could be expressed as abstracts, like impact, originality, creativity, craftsmanship and excellence.
Our year is from September 30 2016 to September 30 2017.
Convener of the Circle is Helen Musa.